


For Keepsies

by KaytiKazoo



Series: Synonymous With Home [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College Student Vax'ildan, Fluff, M/M, Minor Keyleth/Vex'ahlia (Critical Role), Single Parent Scanlan Shorthalt, making out in a car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12911625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: Scanlan is a former musician turned single father who works full-time and his boyfriend, Vax'ildan is a college student with two jobs to pay the rent, and sometimes you take what you can get for now, which might be making out in a car in the dark.





	For Keepsies

Scanlan got out of work at the music center late on Sunday night, his fingers tired from displaying the proper fingering on the frets to inexperienced players who refused to learn what he was trying to teach them. He didn’t hate his job, not really. It was draining at times, and sometimes he missed the glory and glamour of the stage, but with a daughter he had to take care of and a mortgage that demanded to be paid on time, he needed something steadier than an on-the-road lifestyle. He was out of work most nights before dinner, except on re-scheduled or over-booked weekends where more than one class were taught back to back, which meant that he got to see his daughter every night.

He had a good life, actually. He had a loving boyfriend, and a wonderful, albeit mouthy daughter, and a steady, well-paying job. Scanlan had come a long way from an orphaned kid on the streets playing for his next meal. After his mother had died, he learned early that you kept a smile on your face if you wanted the coin. No one wanted to see a sad homeless kid singing for their dinner. They wanted to be wowed by the resourceful child with the amazing voice who turned phrases quickly and played their heartstrings as much as you played their coin-purses.

That, however, was a trick of the past. That was not who Scanlan Shorthalt was anymore. Scanlan Shorthalt of the present had a house to go home to every night.

Climbing into his pre-owned but still respectable car, he set his work bag in the backseat and checked his phone. Kaylie had sent him three texts over the last hour, nothing urgent, just updates. She’d finished her homework, had put dinner in the fridge for him to heat up if he wanted when he got home, and she was going to bed early because she had before school rehearsals she had to be awake for. He also had a series of texts from the Vox Machina group chat about plans for the next weekend that Scanlan wouldn’t be able to go to because he had a big class conference thing he couldn’t miss. He’d have to send Kaylie to stay with a friend that weekend, not that she would mind, but he hated dumping her on other parents like he was irresponsibly partying or something.

Lastly, he got a text from his boyfriend, Vax’ildan, describing the hellish day he had at work, the last line a request to see him soon.

Scanlan: **How about right now**

Vax’ildan: **What about Kaylie**

Scanlan: **She’s a latchkey kid who put herself to bed, how’s about it?**

Vax’ildan: **Pick me up in 5**

Scanlan grinned and sent him back a flirty kissing emoji, started up the car, and sent Kaylie a text for the morning telling her to be good. She was a good kid, but she was also a spitfire. She had the kind of fire that people in authority didn’t appreciate, and it led to many calls to Scanlan to come meet the principle to talk about his daughter’s attitude. Every time, though, he would shrug and tell them that they were there to teach his daughter and if they weren’t going to try to work with _her_ , he would find her a different school and take the tuition he was paying them somewhere else. He hoped that they wouldn’t kill that spark inside of her, because that was what made her a Shorthalt, that would make her resilient against the world’s ugliness.

He drove across town to where Vax lived with his twin sister and her dog, Trinket who was almost as big, if not bigger, than Scanlan himself. The streetlamps cast shadows and spotlights over him as he drove through the mostly deserted streets of Emon. It felt normal, like when he used to step out onto stage with the single spotlight leaving the rest of the stage in shadow. The crowd would go crazy over his shadow, and then he’d step into that warm beam of light and they’d go ballistic. He missed that occasionally, but then he’d look to Kaylie or Vax and that feeling would edge away to make room for his fondness for roots.

Scanlan: **I’m here edgelord get your cute ass in this car**

Vax’ildan: **You think my ass is cute**

Scanlan: **You say that like I wasn’t all up on and in that ass last week, of course your ass is cute as long as it gets in this car in the next 3 minutes**

Vax appeared not a minute later, folding into Scanlan’s car with a cheeky grin. Scanlan was met with a small kiss on the lips.

“I’m glad you came,” Vax said in greeting. “So, what’s the plan?”

Putting the car back into drive, Scanlan merely smiled at his boyfriend. His boyfriend was gorgeous, with long silky black hair he kept neatly pulled away from his face in a beautiful braid down his back and vaguely elf-like ears. Scanlan teased him for those ears sometimes, but only because he knew how much running his mouth along them made Vax’s knees go weak. He loved being able to make Vax quiver and stutter with just his fingertips and lips. He prided himself on it, among other things.

“How was work?” he asked.

“The funeral home is depressing,” Vax said with a sigh, sitting back into his seat but entwining their hands without much ceremony. It didn’t feel right without their hands together these days anyway, even when Kaylie would sneer and say they were being gross. Scanlan would kiss Vax dramatically in front of her just for those comments.

“It’s a funeral home,” Scanlan stated, squeezing his hand. “It’s bound to be, what with the death and the grief.”

“Yeah, you never really get used to it. And I suppose it’s good practice for my career, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck sometimes.”

“Well, I suck sometimes, you don’t seem to complain.”

He paused, thinking maybe he crossed the line there as Vax was trying to be honest about his day but Vax was smiling, though, so Scanlan wasn’t worried. He was a little bit of an open book, in that he was always talking about how he felt. It made it really easy for Scanlan to know where he stood with Vax when Vax looked right at him and then told him. He had looked directly at Scanlan one night after the group had been partying, snagged his hand, and told him that he loved him. That’s how Vax had asked him out, by admitting that he was in love with Scanlan. Their first date was spent between the sheets in Vax’s bedroom since Vex and Keyleth were out on the town dancing around their own relationship on an actual date at an actual restaurant.

Now, a year later, they barely saw each other since Vax worked two jobs and was working towards a registered nurse certification to keep stress from sitting on his twin and Scanlan had a full-time job and was a full-time parent. But they made time for each other, even if that was a few minutes in Scanlan’s car before he went to Kaylie’s performance or Vax had to disappear off into the never-ending realm of night classes.

They were happy, though, somehow. They fit together perfectly. When they saw each other, it was euphoric.

Scanlan drove into the small parking lot behind the bar where they met, the streetlamp on either side blown, leaving them in total darkness once he turned the headlights off. Without speaking, Scanlan unbuckled at the same time Vax did, and then he crawled over the center console and into Vax’s seat.

“Hey Shorthalt,” Vax mumbled as Scanlan kissed along his jaw and up to his almost elven ears. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, edgelord,” Scanlan replied. Vax slid his hands up under the back of Scanlan’s uniform button up. He was still wearing his nametag and his badge, he could feel them pressing into them, but he didn’t care. He just wanted Vax’s hands wherever they could get. They didn’t rush. They had all night. It was only just after 11 o’clock, and Scanlan could run on very few hours of sleep. He’d run on three hours of sleep for four days once.

This was much better than sleeping anyway.

He memorized the slide of their tongues together, the way Vax always tasted vaguely of caramel candies, and the soft skin of his lips against Scanlan’s. He knotted his hands in Vax’s hair as a hand disappeared from Scanlan’s back where it had been stroking a never-ending pattern of lines and circles. Then, they reclined and the hand reappeared. They weren’t in a hurry. They didn’t start stripping immediately.

Between kisses, they traded stories of their weeks. Vax told him about his class project, and Scanlan told him about how management had double-booked him with a violin group and a guitar group. Vax told him about Vex going to see Syldor, and Scanlan told him about Kaylie asking about Juniper. He studied the way Vax’s mouth formed his stories, muffled by his own, how his words tasted in their shared space.

When they pulled at each other’s clothes, it was one at a time, admiring each other’s forms in the dim light. They didn’t go any further, though, their own exhaustion catching up with them as they lay against one another. Vax ran cold, and Scanlan hot, their skin balancing the other to a perfect temperature. They kissed. That’s all Scanlan had been aiming for, making out with his boyfriend like they were a bunch of teenagers daring the world to catch them. Vax’s hair came loose at some point and Scanlan finds himself enjoying braiding and unbraiding small sections, set against the younger man’s bare chest. Vax pressed period kisses into Scanlan’s forehead, but mostly sat back and let Scanlan curl into his lap.

“I should get home,” Scanlan said as a burst of laughter came from the bar, drunk students stumbling out and heading towards waiting cabs. “Maybe someday we’ll go on a real date again.”

“Someday,” Vax agreed, tracing the tattoo on Scanlan’s shoulder, the one they entire group had gotten one very misguided and heavily drunk night at the Slayer’s Take Pub. It kept them connected, kept them grounded in their pasts, in their friendships. Whenever they were sad, they could just look in the mirror, see that symbol on their shoulders, and remember that they had family. It wasn’t blood, but sometimes, the family you choose can mean so much it’s overwhelming. Vax often caressed the mark on Scanlan’s skin, as if reminding them both of their bond together. “Until then, I’m content with this for now, as long as I get you for keepsies.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading a book for class tonight and my brain really just wanted the characters to make out in a car in the dark, and the book wouldn't let that happen, so I made it happen myself. This is extremely self-indulgent fluff and happiness.  
> Thanks for reading!!  
> -K


End file.
